This is the work blog for the KDE Visual Design Group a group of dedicated designers striving to improve community participation in design for KDE as well as design work in general for KDE applications and Plasma.

onsdag 11 juni 2014

"Monday Report" - bi-weekly edition

In which I complain about having too much to do, then start going all insane about all the cool stuff you so need to see, ask you to test the Plasma 5 beta2 and then on to the wallpaper competition and the last leg of that.

Right first off - I am swamped. I know it's not good that I skip the monday reports but lets just say I had to cut down or something or skip sleep entirely... sry guys, I know reports are relevant, but not as relevant as "working on Plasma Next and Next-next" (yes there is a Next-next in the works :) ) so I hope you forgive my tardiness.

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Right on to the awesome stuff. The screenshots are all from Sebastian "Il Capitano" Kügler who is hacking away like his life depended on it. These are all "where we are now" - and check below for "where we're heading" hints.

This is the new login screen - there are plenty of fiddly bits to deal with but it's the first step towards making a unified login experience. Yes the work is still far from over but it's getting closer every day.

So you've logged in have you? Well this is what you'll meet all the system tray icons have been reworked the new Plasma Theme "Breeze" is there and you can see the new wallpaper switcher as well as the new layout for the Application Launcher. Please note that Breeze is transparent - only that its transparent with some dark magic by Marco Martin making the background fuzzy and desaturated.

Below is the new battery and brightness tray in the systray. Notice that there are two screenshots, one with the layout as is and one with the new icons. The icon sizes will be fiddled with but when have I ever NOT shown you guys and girls some work-in-progress love?

So the switcher has gotten some revamped workings too based on the Activity Switcher by Ivan Čukić to try to make the entire feel of the switching a tad bit more unified and safe for users.

Below is a pop-up for a new message - now granted not much of a change BUT the work is being done on the layout of the thing. Essentially the Icons size in comparison with the Header and the subheader.

Here's the new Networks Systemtray dohickey - you look me in the eye and tell me that isn't the most awesome thing you've ever seen! As you can see a MASSIVE part of the work has gone into trying to make Plasma feel more unified in its design, trying to make it part of an entire whole instead of different details. The work is far from over but you gotta admit, this is nerve-tinglingly (should be a word) good!

The calendar... Now now before you go all bananas and think "Where's my daily planner bit!?!" the reason it's disabled is because we don't have support for it in PIM just yet. So better disable it by default than bring something that doesn't work amirite?

Also note the Breeze windowdeco. It's there now :)

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Where can I get my greasy mitts on all this magical goodness you ask? Well young madams and sirs you can download and test the Beta 2 of it following the instructions of Jonathan Riddell on the Dot remember that this is for testing only. And please please please write in bugreports and test it thoroughly the better its tested the easier the work becomes!

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Wallpapers! What about the wallpapers? Well the competition is at its final stage. But hey I'll post ANOTHER blogg post in a few seconds ok? It'll be easier for you guys.

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Oh oh oh before I go any further I will whisper to you all a secret... "The system settings are being worked on and although its to early to show anything... lets just say when I saw the current version of them I went "ooooh daaaaaaaamn!" so loud my husband asked what was up" ... I cannot explain how brilliant this will be... ooooh! :D:D:D

Ok I gotta dash, have insane amounts of work to get to and I'll try to do these things properly each week but IF I don't rest assure that the only thing stopping me is because I'm working on something brilliant!

14 kommentarer:

This is starting to look great (and I'm a Win8 user), but I have yet to see screenshots with the taskbar set in a vertical position. On KDE4 it can be set that way but it looks as if it's an afterthought. I hope Plasma5 will support properly (fully functional, good looking) vertically set taskbars and that the KDE Visual Design Group will dedicate enough time ensuring it will. With modern displays getting increasingly wider (for example the 21:9 aspect ratio is starting to become widespread) it would be a mistake to assume that most users will keep the traditional horizontal orientation.

Very good point! But as I am an honest person (more or less) I'll have say "No" not enough time has been spent on that - I wish there WHERE enough time to spend on it but there simply isn't. With that said it's not like we pretend there isn't an issue just that the focus is all spent in one area... But you are absolutely right there should be work done on it - but give us some time ok? We have to start at one end to get to the other as it where :)

Network manager plasmoid screenshot:What are those 2 checkboxes on the top of the window stand for? I am looking on the screenshot and can not even guess... And this is after 1001 posts on planetkde about the usability of the network manager app... The old plasmoid was not perfect, but at least it was intuitive. Sorry guys, this is horrible.

Well as you should probably know by now all these are work in progress - as you can read in the forums we're working on new icons for the flight-mode and turn off wifi. So the reason you can't guess is because their screenshots of something without icons.

I post stuff when it crops up, when there is something to show and talk about - not when it's polished and finished - because I believe in community participation. I believe in people joining in and the most honest way to do that is to lift the skirt and show the inner workings. Which is what you see here.

Like I've said a 1001 times - this is not a marketing ploy. We're in it for the community. Revealing only when things are 100% done and polished would be better for PR, but it would harm the community's participation and call me dogmatic but I'd rather see the world burn than exclude every user and their grandparents from feeling like they can be a part and contribute.

So with that all said: join in. Suggest new icons for the checkboxes! All it takes is respect, humility, bravery and kindness and the ability to work with others :)

I must say that the difference between the two betas is staggering. I am truly excited about this new release now. I can definitely see the polish and shine for the new release coming now!

A quick question about application styles (forgive me because I know you have blogged about this before, but I got confused): Using the project neon iso, I noticed that the default theme is a nice looking QtCurve theme. But there is also a nice looking theme called "fusion" that you can switch to. Are both of these going to be new themes? and which one is the new default? And which one (if either) is meant to be paired with the new window decoration "breeze"?

Also, thanks again for the "monday" reports. Your (and all other devs) work is much appreciated!

Can we have an option to remove the underline, for instance, in Pictures in the dolphin screenshots? I second the THE Joker question, I guess you can change the titlebar color, right? in the forum there where a screenshot of a titlebar with the same color as the window.